LIKEWISE ALL CHURCH WORKERS (21/01/14) Good morning dearly beloved, How was your night? Do hope you slept well? How are you doing spiritually? Are you praying well? Do hope you have not slept spiritually? If you have, do I have your permission to wake you up this morning. Please dear, wake up and stay AWAKE. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead (Eph.5:13). And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof (Rom.13:11-14). Every unbeliever lives perpetually in the night. Until a man wakes up in Jesus, he lives and sleeps with the dead. What a terrible thing to be a living dead? You see why you should go and preach to that delectable lady that seems to be enjoying the world. Living dead! A daughter of my wifes colleague told her that two of her University room mates came back from the prolonged ASUU strike with pregnancies. Dangerous dividends of ASUU strike. Some of the boys became armed robbers and kidnappers. Mine this morning is not about them but you. Part of what the LORD had led us to be doing here is to keep ourselves spiritually awake. We are here to herald the coming of the LORD. Jesus is coming sooner than you think. Wake up! No matter how strong and equipped you are, you make yourself most vulnerable to attack when you sleep. That was how David and his ragtag company of men (Just like Boys company in Biafra) would have finished king Saul and the best army generals of Israel then including Abner, the son of Ner, captain of the host of the Israeli army (1Sam.26:7). But for the humanness of David, they would have been killed easily like bush rats. Abishal, younger brother to Joab, known for his deadly strikes would have finished Saul and Abner just with a stroke of the spear. Ordinarily who are you to near Saul and Abner to draw out the line of battle. But sleep made them look like dodo (fried plantain). Please, wake up, so as not to become dodo for the devil. It is time to stay spiritually awake all the time..Wake up to pray. Wake up to your devotions. Wake up to studying the bible. Wake up to evangelism. May Gods abundant grace keep you awake as we await the sudden emergence of the bridegroom. Message 36 of GLEANING THROUGH A PASTORAL EPISTLE. Apostle Paul writes on Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to wine, not greedy of filthy lucre A deacon is a ministerial assistance. In some church denominations, they are chosen lay people who do some works in church. We remember the seven that were chosen in the early church for the mere purpose of food distribution. The exemplary ball was set rolling with the emergence of these seven. And they were chosen based on the facts that they were men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom (Acts.6:3). Their appointment helped the work in the early church a lot (Acts.6:5-7), as such appointments can still be of tremendous help in todays church. You know since I resumed this January, the focus had been on church bishops. You know them. The most visible men of God in church. It is possible for somebody to have been saying all this while Tell Them while those messages were being given. There is no Tell Them with Gods word. That is why todays scripture began with Likewise. Even here, good brothers and sisters, I am not writing to Tell Them. I am not such a writer or preacher. The message is to me first. Actually, this is like my Quiet Time notes. I do not read bible so as to be gathering up what to Tell Them. That is a wrong perception of ministry. You know I read some Tell Them messages in this HOLINESS BRETHREN page. Some join us just to find an opportunity to be Telling Them. So they just want us to read them, but will not bother to read what any other person writes. It does not work that way. What is the point writing what will not profit. Your attitude is your spirit. It has the capacity to kill your message before it gets delivered. Dead on delivery or what they call stillbirth. The attitude of Tell Them is a killer attitude. Every God ordained and sent message is for every child of God. We are all called to serve in church. There is no single bench warmer. If you are just warming bench in church, you chose so to be, but that is not the will of God for your life. God works continually in us to perfect all that concerns us as we work for him. Most people deliberately avoid working for God so as not to be too committed. Some feel that church work demands a lot. Some feel it puts a lot of restrictions on them. They still want to be enjoying some sinful indulgences and habits. That will not help your growth. Working for God helps your spiritual growth. It aids discipleship work in church. It is easy to supervise and oversee the life of a church worker by the church leadership than just on ordinary members. Likewise, means as it is with the pastor in the church in terms of the kind of person God wants and desires as His child, so also every other Christian. The pastor just takes the lead in all these. He sets the example. If he is a husband of one wife, so also every other church member or believer. If he should be sober, so others. His is to show the example. Part of leadership is doing first what you want others do. They learn from you to do. And learning is best done practically. Audio-Video learning. That was Christ leadership style. Every church worker is therefore expected to be grave. You know early at the beginning of my trying to know the words of the English language, I used to think that being grave is only associated with death. So that I will have nothing to do with such a word. Being grave here means being solemn and serious. Even in the grave that we are more familiar with, the grave site is a place of solemnity. It is not a place to crack jokes. You do not do the Julius Agwu thing at a grave site. There are no frivolities at burial sites.....My dear, church business is a serious one. And whatever you do for God in service and ministry do it with all your might and with all your heart. As serious as preaching, so is sweeping the fellowship center. And you know for years in campus, I swept my campus fellowship center quietly without anybody knowing. What happened was that I used to be part of the group that used to come and sweep the Protestant chapel of my campus every Sunday morning. My campus fellowship center was close by. So what I used to do was, once we finish, pray and the leader of the chapel cleaning team dismisses us, I will sneak behind to sweep the fellowship hall where we used to meet every 4pm on Sunday. We used to call that hall Lecture West in my then IMOSU (now ABSU). Even as the President I was still doing it until one sister discovered me one day and vowed never to allow it continue. I withdrew like aging David, leaving that beloved sister to share in the blessings of service. But you see personally, I am a strong believer that whatever is worth dong is worth doing well. From sweeping the fellowship ground, I became the President and later the Joint Campus Fellowship General Secretary. It was the seriousness shown by Philip and Stephen among those seven that distinguished the two. Philip and Stephen, you wonder what happened to the rest five? Do whatever you do with seriousness. Do not be double-tongued. Be sincere and honest in work. Let your yes be yes, your no, no. Let it be that when you greet good morning, who you are greeting will not have the need of looking for a wrist watch so as to be sure that it is morning. Where there is seriousness in business or work, success is not far at all. May the LORD reveal this message to you and bless you by it. Enjoy your day. Shalom.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 04:14:18 +0000